Indianapolis Colts special teams coordinator Brian Mason left Thursday night’s preseason game with a serious knee injury after getting caught in a sideline collision on the final play of the fourth quarter.
Mason, who has been with the Colts since 2023, was standing when two players - one from Indianapolis and one from New England - ran into him at full speed. He went down on the turf in pain right away.
“He got rolled up right on the sideline that last play,” Colts head coach Shane Steichen said after the game. “So we’ll see. He’s getting evaluated for his knee right now.”
The early outlook is not encouraging. According to Joel A.
Erickson of IndyStar, the belief is that Mason has multiple torn ligaments in his knee. At this point, it’s unclear whether he’ll miss time for the Colts, but with Week 1 less than a month away, the clock is already ticking.
The situation brings to mind a similar sideline injury from 2011, when former New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton tore an MCL after Jimmy Graham accidentally ran into him. “It’s one of those things, the play kind of got up on me quicker,” Payton told the Times-Picayune.
“I think the second part of the tackle seemed maybe all of a sudden. … At first I just thought I went down and hurt my knee then when I tried to get up I clearly felt something was up with it.”
For Mason, the hope is simple: this is the last time he gets flattened on the sideline.
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Special teams, of course, is often where those summer battles get decided on the margins, and Indianapolis saw both encouraging signs and a few rough spots in the opener. The Colts got useful contributions from multiple players in that phase, but they also had an untimely penalty that erased a big return and underscored how quickly one mistake can change the conversation. For Shrader and the rest of the specialists, the next preseason game now carries a little more weight than it did before kickoff. [Read more 🡒]
Colts Camp Suddenly Has An Injury Problem Fans Cant Ignore
The Colts got back to work on Aug. 15 for their 10th training camp practice, and the emphasis was on red zone passing drills as the team tried to keep sharpening the offense in a busy stretch of August. But the setting around practice was hard to ignore, with several players listed as injured after the preseason game, a reminder that camp depth can change quickly once contact and game reps start piling up.
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